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Novak Djokovic defeats Rafael Nadal at the US Open men’s singles final: 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1.

All we can say is: Soplak! We need to see Rafa’s high kick again.

Read Steve Tignor’s excellent recap of how the Djoker beat Rafa at the US Open final this morning (Manila time).

We Federites can only console ourselves with the thought that the Djoker is keeping the Fed’s record safe from Rafa.

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Cartoon from the New Yorker Thanks to Bernard-Henri for the alert.

Brian Phillips tries to explain what happened at the Federer-Djokovic semifinal. Thanks to Jon for the alert.

We want athletes to be able to explain sports. Sport, at its most basic, is about physically realizing intentions — calculating the angle, plotting the spin, executing the shot. So surely the people who have the intentions, the people whose inner lives sport is expressing in some complicated way, are in the best position to tell us what really happens on the court. And to a certain extent that’s true. But one of the reasons it’s so scary to imagine going into the postmatch press conference as a loser is that it’s not entirely true. What happens during a match may concern you to an emotionally devastating degree, but what happens can also turn on tiny fluctuations of chance so complicated that they are astoundingly difficult to articulate — minute physical differences that fall within any conceivable margin of error, emotional swings that could have gone either way and went against you, who knows why.

Champorado with tuyo is comfort food. Guinataan is comfort food. It’s what you have when you’re glum or stressed-out or when Roger Federer is leading Novak Djokovic two sets to love then up a break in the fifth set at the US Open semis, and the Djoker somehow slips through. Preferably in a bowl that you can hug as you rock back and forth in fetal position, humming to yourself. Coke and Chippy is Roby’s comfort food. Teddy Boy’s comfort food is…food (Though he is way fitter these days so he must not need it).
 

Laing is not comfort food to me; laing is more like a blood transfusion. I will take a plate of shredded gabi leaves, coconut milk, pork and searing hot chilis over any ten-thousand-dollar ten-course molecular gastronomy showcase served in test tubes any time. (I don’t see why my food has to come out of an autoclave.)

Laing is my madeleine out of Proust. I cannot see a tray of laing behind the glass in a turo-turo without becoming eight again. It is my time machine, my childhood, my mom. 

Photos from My City, My SM, My Cuisine at SM City Naga, Camarines Sur. Of course the main event was the Laing competition. All photos by Wayne Lim. Thanks, Mang Wayne!

Read Laing is my I.V. drip, my column this week at interaksyon.com. Should be up later today.

It has recently come to our attention that we are no longer the only people ripping off Tom Waits titles for our writing. Jon Morales our missing straight guy columnist has infringed on our infringement monopoly, referencing Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards in his twitter profile. Yes he is on twitter, @jonnymo.

We caught up with Jon Sunday night to discuss a wide range of topics, from his Tagalog proficiency and cooking skills to the girlfriend to city ratio of his nomadic existence. In this video we talk about Tom Waits, whether The Wire is the greatest TV series ever, the artistic ambitions of Kanye West, why the Black Eyed Peas should just go away, the toxicology report on Amy Winehouse, being a fan of Maldita, and which Eraserheads songs he knows.

Shot 9/11/11 by my Macbook Air. (Not super-clear, but uploading the file takes much less time.)

We’ve been keeping a journal since we were 12. Mercifully the earliest notebooks have been lost, but the ones from age 16 onwards are around to remind us of how stupid we used to be (Not that we can claim any great improvement since then). Journals help us make sense of our lives. Life does not unspool like a movie with a clear narrative, it happens in bewildering chunks that have no apparent connection to each other until you recount them to yourself.

It is exactly ten years today since two commercial airplanes were hijacked and crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. We remember trying and failing to process the sight of the planes slamming into the towers, the towers crumbling, the ash shrouding lower Manhattan. It was the end of that world as we knew it.

Just before impact we were carrying on with our daily lives. Noel and Bess were having a drink at Flute, a bar that no longer exists. Jon was skipping chemistry class. I had woken up ravenous from jet lag, eaten a big Chinese dinner, and was withdrawing cash from an ATM in Greenhills.

The next minute everything changed.

L-R: Cristian Ayala, Lucas Ramos and Rom Villarica

The International School Manila Robotics Team composed of Cristian Ayala, Lucas Ramos and Rom Villarica won Gold in the Open Category, High School Division at the 10th Philippine Robotics Olympiad. These 9th graders beat 11 other high school teams for the right to represent the Philippines in the World Robot Olympiad in Abu Dhabi this November.
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